Altitude: 5300m
Atmospheric Pressure: 560mbar
Trek: 0kms
It’s snowing lightly this morning, and the clouds are not
lifting as they usually do in time for breakfast, so I decide to delay my
washing by a day.
After last night’s party, only a few of us make it to
breakfast, either due to sensitive stomach, or just being tired.
Around 11:30,
Monica thinks she betters checks on some of the English youngsters who still
haven’t made it out of their tent, just to make sure they haven’t chocked on
their own vomit. Turns out, it was a close call for some of them!!!
At lunch, Russell called a meeting in the WhitePod for
straight after lunch.
So we all gathered in the WhitePod, climbers, guides, film
crew and sherpas.
One look at Monica tells me this is not good news.
Indeed, Russell goes on to explain how scared the sherpas
have been everytime they go through the icefall and how Phurba had raised
concern about the activity in the icefall. Both the icefall doctors and the
sherpa reckon the icefall is 50% more dangerous than the previous year.
We all know too that for our groups, out of 2 journeys
through the icefall we both got scared by seracs fall, with the 1st
group having ice blocks tumbling between their legs and our group being swallowed
by the snow cloud of another one.
Russell also reminds us that we were lucky when Amanda and
Annie decided to stop at Camp 1 rather than push to Camp 2, hence avoiding
being brought down by the avalanche from Nupsee.
He also mentioned the multiple meeting with the icefall
doctors, trying to think of a different, safer way up.
Finally, he said that the sherpas, having gone through the
icefall 10 times, needed a further 8 journeys to get all the kit required to
support US to the summit push, making it more like a suicide mission!
Phurba then spoke, to apologies for not accepting to support
the summit push, Harry, the guide involved with the injured soldiers, spoke to
say that he’d seen the near misses and he knew we’d been close to disaster and
he’d rather pull the plug on the expedition rather than call family members to
tell them something went wrong.
So that was it, Russell explains that it was the end of the
expedition, the first time he’s had to do this. He was very emotional and
believed that there would be an accident very soon and it would be
inconsiderate to ignore the signs.
The people around the room were displaying all sorts of
emotions: shocked, crying, agreeing and even thankful for Russell to make such
a tough decision. Better be safe than sorry.
I must admit, personally, of course I’m disappointed, but
I’m also very aware that in the mountain, those who listen to their gut
feelings are those who survive to tell the tale and try again.
So that’s it, the end of this year’s dream!! Official!!!
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